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By David Brice
Golf International, Inc.

Praia d'El Rey - ranked among the world's top 100 courses.

Ask anyone to name a European capital with more than two-dozen excellent golf courses, all located within a half hour's drive of the city center and chances are they will be scratching their heads for a while. The answer to the question is Lisbon, the charming capital of Portugal. This tiny country with a population of little more than 10 million, boasts over 70 outstanding courses, some ranked among the best in Europe.

Portugal has never received the attention it deserves from American travelers, neither as a great vacation destination, nor for a country with an abundance of top quality golf. If the country is under-rated, then Lisbon has been served an even greater injustice.

The 4th hole runs teasingly toward the sea.

No other European capital offers more to its visitors. From its rich history and culture with impressive monuments and museums, to wonderful shopping, dining and a nightlife that never seems to end. This is a town with everything, including a very special charm and friendliness, seldom found in any major city.

Equally as special is Lisbon's wealth of golf courses that literally surround the city. Conveniently close, these quality courses are all accessible to visitors and the welcome will be filled with the same, genuine friendliness that comes so naturally to the Portuguese. Big city golf, so often unwelcoming and off-limits to non-members, is unheard of around Lisbon.

Praia d'El Rey 8th green.

A short, half hour's drive along the coast in either direction from the city center, reveals an array of golf courses that can only impress. Their names may not roll easily from Anglo-Saxon tongues, but the consistently high quality of layouts such as Penha Longa, Troia, Belas, Aroeira and Oitavos among others, speaks for itself. This Lisbon Coast has become a showcase for the design talents of some of the world's foremost golf architects - Robert Trent Jones, Donald Steel, Cabell Robinson, Arthur Hills, Frank Pennink and Rocky Roquemore have all left their indelible mark here.

Carving its way through dense forest, the challenge is constantly changing.

Drive northward for a further 30 minutes and you could be playing one of the best courses in the entire country, Praia d'El Rey, a truly stunning layout, now ranked among the world's top 100 courses. Opened in 1997, this beauty comes from the drawing board of the noted American architect, Cabell Robinson.

Fronted by a three-mile stretch of pristine Atlantic shoreline, fringed with a pure white-sand beach that extends as far as the eye can see, cliffs and sand dunes complete the perfect, picture postcard setting. Inland a landscape of rolling hills and mature pine forest bring the variety on which Praia d'El Rey has built its reputation -- a unique combination of links, parkland and forest and a thrill packed layout

The Atlantic Ocean is a strong influence.

This is a true championship course of superb, undulating fairways, immaculate greens and provocative bunkers. The seaside location and accompanying links characteristics, combine with creatively thought out inland holes, bringing extra zest to an already savory dish. It brings a joy to the senses from start to finish and the spectacular setting is just a bonus.

Measuring a shade over 7,100 yards from the tips, Praia d'El Rey is by any standard, a course to contend with. But with the forward tees reducing most of the problems of length, it's a layout that has a gentler side, allowing the higher handicapper as an enjoyable a round as the single digit handicapper.

Praia d'El Rey - The perfect setting and a stiff test of golf.

For the more accomplished player however, Praia d'El Rey is a stern examination of golf from the back tees and definitely a must play -- Miss this one and you'll be kicking yourself for ever more, it just might be one of the best you will ever play!

The course sets out through pine trees and alongside lakes, offering a few tantalizing views of The Atlantic. By the third hole the senses are aroused by the smell and thunderous sound of waves crashing onto the beaches below.

Having whetted your appetite for the sea, the layout then teasingly turns abruptly inland, darting through parkland into dense growths of pine. Turning on its heels once again at the eighth, it charges back down to the shoreline, the spectacular vistas at your feet.

There may be no more stunning display of sights and sounds in golf than the string of holes running from the eleventh to the fifteenth. The fairways take you along perilous cliff-tops, with the wind whistling in from The Atlantic, the roar of the ocean crashing below and spectacular panoramas all around. Stay focused on your game however and avoid Mother Nature's cunning distractions, these are some of the trickiest holes on the course. Length without accuracy is a folly that Praia d'El Rey charges heavily for. The rough is links-like, thick and unforgiving with a voracious appetite for golf balls.

But just like any good layout, the best is saved until last, on the turn for home. The 17th, measuring almost 600 yards is nothing less than a magnificent monster -- it's one of the longest holes in Europe and the most difficult of all that amazing Praia d'El Rey has to offer.

This is a course that has the ability to exhaust from the unrelenting and ever-changing challenges it presents. Yet it simultaneously provides even the most battle weary player a unique exhilaration, knowing you have had the honor of playing a very special course that is surely, one of a kind.

There is no shame and almost an honor to being beaten by this champion, and like any true gentleman, it congratulates you on your effort and invites you to share a glass or two at a 19th hole that is as handsome and welcoming as the course itself.

For suggestions on how to include Praia d'El Rey and other top ranked courses on a golf trip to the sunny, warm Lisbon Coast, click here.

© 2007 David Brice / Golf International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Golf International -- Providers of quality golf travel arrangements since 1988.